


the weight of a thousand stones

by tkreyesevandiaz



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxious Evan "Buck" Buckley, Caring Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Christmas, Gen, Holidays, Hopeful Ending, Loneliness, M/M, Melancholy, Mentions of Evan "Buck" Buckley/Abby Clark, POV Evan "Buck" Buckley, Pandemics, Past Relationship(s), Sad, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28336827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tkreyesevandiaz/pseuds/tkreyesevandiaz
Summary: The loneliness crushes him sometimes.It’s an unyielding weight, sitting heavy on his heart with the weight of a thousand stones.Holidays only make it worse.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Christopher Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley & Firehouse 118 Crew, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Comments: 42
Kudos: 234





	the weight of a thousand stones

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, thank you Felicity for helping through this one!
> 
> Secondly, if sad fics are not your thing, especially sad holiday fics, don't read this. There is a hopeful ending but still.
> 
> TW: Loneliness, Coronavirus Pandemic, Alcohol mentions

The loneliness crushes him sometimes.

It’s an unyielding weight, sitting heavy on his heart with the weight of a thousand stones. 

Holidays only make it worse.

From his job at the bar, he sees people celebrating together all the time. There are special Christmas themed shots that go around fast, different cocktails and mocktails that suit everyone’s fancy. 

Apparently, peppermint pairs well with alcohol.

Briefly, Buck thinks to himself that it’s not fair to hate a whole season because he misses the one family member he could’ve reached out to. But he  _ has  _ reached out and he hasn’t heard a scrap of information back. 

It had been the same story the year before, and while Buck can’t deny the pit of worry in his stomach, he doesn’t know what else to do, save from showing up at a time where his sister probably doesn’t want to see him.

There’s no point in calling either of his parents, knowing that it’s just going to open a whole can of worms he doesn’t want to deal with right now.

So, instead, he spends his night tossing bottles and throwing drinks together at the bar, knowing that Christmas tips are always heavier than other days, and that he’ll get paid time and a half for working today. 

He could use the money, but there’s also a petite woman sitting across the bar, dressed like an elf, shooting him heated looks that tell him perhaps he won’t be spending the evening alone after all.

He puts his loneliness on hold, and follows where she takes him.

Afterwards, after the girl’s left, leaving nothing but the lingering scent of perfume and recklessness behind, Buck thinks that he’s never felt more alone in his life.

* * *

The next year is a little different.

This year, he’s a firefighter. 

He’s passed through the academy, has been recruited to the 118, and was instructed to report to Captain Nash. He’s already been fired and reinstated to duty, all within his first six months on the job. 

He’s not quite sure what he keeps chasing here, but the shock of losing the only thing that’s ever mattered jolts him back to reality.  This is a cause bigger than him, and for once, he gets to be a part of it instead of standing on the sidelines.

From there, Buck makes sure that he isn’t putting his job in jeopardy, because without it, he isn’t quite sure who he would be. He’s spent far too long looking for a single place of belonging, and nothing’s fit quite like the starched cotton of his LAFD uniform. 

Then he meets Abby.

Abby comes into his life in a whirlwind of rollercoaster losses and dispatch calls. He’s instantly enamoured with the voice coming from his phone, calling for nothing but to check up on him.

He hasn’t had much of that, so he latches on, even when he knows he probably shouldn't. She sounds lonely, too, adrift the way Buck feels more often than he wants to. But while he’s tethered to nothing anymore, she’s anchored to her mother out of a sense of daughterly duty.

For as much as Abby pulls him out of the barrier he’s erected around his heart, he knows that on some level, he shows her that there’s another world out there, outside of taking care of other people.

Buck throws everything he can into spinning this relationship into the careful tapestry it is, one tentative thread at a time. He’s careful not to push for too much too fast. He listens to Bobby when the captain offers him advice, he takes Hen’s push to settle in a stable relationship, and he calls upon a few of the things he’s picked over the years to make her feel special. 

But naturally, as all things go, she leaves, too. In one moment, she makes up her mind that she wants to fulfill her mother’s wish, and Buck can’t say anything after that, knowing that Abby’s spent years doing nothing for herself. 

So he pries himself away from her, kisses her goodbye at the airport, and walks back to his car.

Alone.

He makes Bobby schedule him on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and refuses to look too closely at the bare apartment, empty of all things holiday-themed. It’s so unlike him, but the past few years have been nothing but bare walls and empty corners, so Buck lets it slide as just another week.

He throws himself into work, fielding emergencies after emergencies in an effort to keep himself distracted. Still, he concedes letting the station photographer take a photo for a single Christmas card. It’s nothing special, just him with a Santa hat, a teddy bear and a present from the station drive, but as Buck looks at it, he wonders how his life took enough turns that he’s spent the past two years alone.

The address he scrawls on the envelope doesn’t feel real to him anymore, but he posts it anyway, spurred on by a dying flame of hope. He hopes Maddie sees it; he even writes his new phone number, so she has a way to reach him if she wants to.

He and Bobby are the only ones on shift from their original crew, and while Buck would never wish this loneliness on anyone, he can’t help but feel grateful that at the very least, he’s got a friend with him this year.

It’s more than he could’ve asked for.

* * *

The year after that proves to be different in many ways.

Firstly, Maddie’s back, but she’s come back with an aversion to Christmas. Buck can’t place it, because Maddie has always been the first to put up decorations, to get everyone in the spirit, and the one to handcraft all the decorations herself. He absolutely knows that Doug’s got a hand in this newfound attitude towards the holidays and almost wishes he could strangle the guy for it.

Still, he tries to make their first Christmas together special, and it backfires on him, spectacularly. Salt to wound, his friend witnesses his sister dressing him down, too, and Buck, in a moment of pure selfishness, wishes that he’d never pushed for wanting to spend the holidays with her.

Because now, they’re both left hurting, and just as alone.

This year, that ache is only made marginally better by one shining seven-year-old, who’d captured Buck’s heart with one toothy smile and has refused to give it back ever since.

This year, he has Eddie and Christopher.

Eddie, who’s a friend Buck doesn’t know what to do with. He hasn’t had many friends like him over the years, someone so willing to keep their family together, even if it drives them into the ground. He’s never seen that in his life, no matter how much he wishes he had. 

And then there’s Christopher, a boy Buck genuinely admires, because he doesn’t let anything push him down — there’s a lot to be learned from him.

So when Eddie and Christopher invite him to come see Santa in City Square, Buck can’t refuse.

Christopher decides to go by himself, convinced that if his wish is overheard, it won’t come true. Eddie lets him, only calling his name out for a few annual pictures, and Buck is struck with how much he likes being part of this.

Sure, maybe this won’t be the case next year, but for now, Buck lets himself live, happy that he’s got someone to spend at least one Christmas tradition with. He listens as Eddie talks, knowing it takes the man a bit to articulate what he’s feeling into words, and tries to encourage him along the way.

“Sex complicates everything,” Eddie says.

“You said it,” Buck agrees.

Eddie’s love for his son is tangible; it’s something that Buck thinks he’s always been able to feel, from the very moment Eddie had shown him a picture of him. But he hadn’t realized that apparently he gives off a similar sense, directed towards either Diaz boy. 

A wishful elf sees something, and she says six words that only deepen the pit of loneliness in his chest.

He thanks her then, too flustered to explain that Eddie’s actually his best friend and Chris isn't his son, but in one warped moment of something, he lets himself believe that it could happen, and he lets this stranger believe her assumption. 

Regardless, he doesn’t lose sight of himself. Because at the end of the night, even after Christopher’s sleepy wave and Eddie’s smile goodbye, Buck ends up back in his apartment...alone. 

Despite his and Maddie’s argument, Buck still looks around for Christmas magic wherever he can. He sees countless proposals, even sees a military homecoming that leaves both him and Eddie teary-eyed. He suspects it’s the final push Eddie needed to bring Shannon back into their lives, and he’s happy for all of them, but most of all for Christopher, who Eddie says was on cloud nine for his wish coming true.

Buck knows a bit about those — he’s made many over the years.

He reaches out one last time to Maddie, to apologize and this time, asks if they can do something for the holidays together. She accepts the apology, but still isn’t in the Christmas spirit, so Buck doesn’t push.

Instead, he stops by Bobby and Athena’s to congratulate their engagement, and then goes straight to the station to swap out for someone who’d wanted to spend Christmas with her family.

Unlike previous years, Buck’s more content this year, with friends and family that surround him.

Much like previous years, the loneliness still doesn’t dissipate. 

* * *

Being the crew off last year means that all of them are scheduled to work on Christmas this year.

Buck’s happier this year, just because he has his found family back in his grasp. They’ve all been through a lot in the past year, but they’re still standing, and Buck has to believe that means something. Working on Christmas doesn’t bother him either, because he’s done it every year for the past five years, but he can see the worn faces of his friends.

He’s never hated working more than he does when Christopher asks if he can spend Christmas with him. 

No one’s really asked to spend Christmas with him before, and he’s not quite used to this ordeal. Denny looks just at contrite at the other end of Eddie’s coffee table, casting longing looks over to his mom.

“Is it just me, or does Christmas suck this year?” Buck asks, guilt curdling in his chest for having to tell Christopher no. He can’t say no to kids — a fact that all of them know very well.

“Definitely not just you,” Eddie replies, an air of helplessness in his tone, and that seals it. He’s going to fix this, because he doesn’t want any of these kids to feel like he does around the holidays, and he doesn’t want any of his friends feeling lonely for being away from their families.

Bobby wanting to order takeout gives Buck the perfect opening, and he reaches out to Athena about it. Just as he’d suspected, Athena’s appalled by her husband’s nerve, so under her keen eye, the whole plan comes to life, even better than Buck would have imagined.

He would expect nothing less out of Athena Grant.

Buck only flashes a cheeky smile when Bobby leverages an accusatory look in his direction, but he doesn’t take offense — he can read the thinly veiled gratefulness. This year’s definitely put a few more gray hairs on Bobby’s head, and being able to repay him with just a little push feels like something Buck can’t refuse.

Bobby ends up taking the steps three at a time, for whatever reason, but as Buck jogs the rest of the way up, catching Christopher’s bright grin first, he high-fives a guy in the crew, stationing himself out of the way of families meeting one another.

He watches Eddie most of all, finally seeing the grin that’d been notably absent ever since Bobby broke the news of them working on Christmas.

If his grip on the wooden slats tightens to stop himself from joining them, that’s his business.

The smiles on everyone’s faces ease some of the tension from his shoulders, and Buck feels a warm glow settle in the space he’s reserved for the hollowness of the holidays. He pulls mistletoe off the support beam, pressing a thankful kiss to Hen’s cheek before bounding off.

This year, he’ll get to enjoy a full family dinner for Christmas, for the first time since Maddie left for college. He won’t admit that one tidbit to anyone, it still feels pretty great to sit at a table of more than twenty people, after spending so many years at a table of one. 

After they’re stuffed with delicious food, Buck stands back to watch his family interact, using the excuse of fixing a cup of hot cocoa in case anyone happens to look his way.

The station literally looks like Christmas threw up everywhere. Tinsel dots pretty much every corner, there are wreaths hung from the balcony and even the pockets of the pool table have bunches of Christmas berries sticking out from them. He knows it’s going to be hell to clean up after the New Year, because they’ll be picking out the glittery threads for weeks to come, but for the reflection of laughter in the shine of the baubles, Buck can’t bring himself to care.

The kids from the foster home look as happy as anything to be sharing their Christmas with a bunch of firefighters. Buck can spot Marquis and Adam sitting over there, engaging in a playful round of Go Fish with them, while Lucy hands out a few other boxes. May seems to be in her element facilitating this gift exchange, and Buck smiles as he looks on.

He thinks it's wholly unfair for his mind to get ahead of him right now, sneakily whispering that even his sister hasn’t looked his way since dinner, but Buck shoves that part deep inside of him, locking it up tight. There’s a loneliness to having to  _ jump _ from family to family, but he doesn’t want to think about that right now. 

As he looks around, his gaze happens to land on Isabel, who waves him over happily. Buck, never one to deny a Diaz anything, complies immediately, joining them over at the far sofa and listening to Christopher ramble excitedly about his new friends.

Eddie’s hand on his shoulder makes him look up, but the other man is busy talking to someone else. Buck can’t fathom the contact, but realizes that he’s doubting the one person in the world who reads him line by line for everything, and with no small amount of embarrassment, comes to the conclusion that Eddie saw his struggle play out.

Eddie doesn’t remove his touch for the better part of the afternoon, only letting go when the siren blares next. Buck ruffles Christopher’s hair and on a whim, kisses Isabel’s cheek before hightailing it downstairs, his partner right on his heels.

“Thank you, Buck,” Eddie whispers as they swing up into the truck. Buck doesn’t reply, but his face flushes with the compliment. 

It’s not him who pulled it off; Athena’s the one who organized everything. He just had to keep Bobby away, and even that was accomplished with one well-timed call.

So he says nothing at all, but leans a little closer into his friend’s side.

No one deserves to be without family on Christmas — not if he can help it.

* * *

The year after that is the year of the pandemic.

Buck knows he should be hopeful. Two vaccines have been approved, and emergency responders are on the list of priorities. They’re already lined up to get it within two weeks, and just that news makes this holiday season a little sweeter.

Still, this year finds him alone again, sitting in his loft, trying not to let the loneliness get to him.

The past nine months have been the most difficult time of his life. They’ve spent weeks running back and forth, transporting COVID patients on top of their regular house fires and medical emergencies.

He’s seen his friends in the socially distanced workplace, and that’s just about it. Touch starvation and social isolation was beginning to settle in, and his mind took him to places he didn’t want to be more often than not.

Of course, there were offers from Eddie, from Bobby and from Maddie to let him come stay, since he was the only one with no one else at home. Ironically enough, it was that reason that Buck was still stuck at his loft, relying on video calls to get him through. With everyone having at least one high-risk member at home, Buck had thought it was much better for him to stay on his own — reduce the risk of dragging something into someone’s home. 

It’s been the scariest year of his life, watching the people he loves plunging headfirst into danger, risking their lives even more than they usually do. He’s seen patients be put on ventilators, has watched people die with no one but their nurses around him, has broken down enough times over the skyrocketing death toll.

The thing that gets him the most is how selfish so many people have been during this whole pandemic. He’s seen more parties, more raves and more people storming stores mask-less in these nine months than he’d ever thought he’d see during a pandemic. Nothing seemed to deter anyone — not even them falling sick themselves.

It’s exhausting, but Buck stops his mind from going that route as his laptop rings shrilly with Eddie’s ringtone. 

“Hey,” he says, setting the laptop down on the coffee table and leaning back against the couch. His best friend’s smiling face peers right back at him, looking to be roaming around in the kitchen.

“Hi,” Eddie’s warm voice comes from the speakers, brightening a little bit of the funk Buck seemed to have led his mind into. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing, I was just going to see if there’s anything interesting on TV, and then go to sleep.” It’s been his routine for...literally as far back as he could remember at this point — doesn’t matter that it’s only seven o’clock. It's either this or going down another rabbit hole of what COVID-19 means for each person he loves. “Where’s Chris?”

“He’s watching TV, psyched that online school is over,” Eddie says, draining pasta into the sink. “I’m just making dinner. Did you eat?”

Now isn’t that a question. 

Buck looks over at his own kitchen, finding it pretty much untouched and realizes that he’s forgotten about food. 

Again.

Eddie clearly catches onto this, because he only shoots him a disapproving stare. When he speaks next, it’s only to say, “go make something for dinner, you can eat with us tonight.”

Dumbfounded, Buck sets the laptop on the counter, opening his fridge and looking for anything quick he could repurpose. He finds a bunch of vegetables, day-old rice, and eggs — fried rice it is.

He and Eddie talk the entire time they prepare their separate meals. Bit by bit, he begins to feel better about being isolated from everyone he loved, craving any sort of contact at this point. 

When Chris pops up on the screen with a blinding smile, Buck thinks to himself that he doesn't believe he can miss anyone more than he does these two people.

They eat dinner together, Buck propped up on Eddie’s phone so he can see both Diaz boys while his laptop sits in front of him. Part of him knows that this was for the best because it would be a cold day in hell before he let himself put these boys at any risk, but a smaller part of him feels so damn pathetic.

Buck shakes it off as Chris says goodbye, walking off to wash his hands. The kid takes a bit of Buck’s lightness with him, leaving a heavy weight in his wake.

Eddie keeps shooting him looks while he cleans the kitchen, and Buck already knows what he’s trying to say, and isn’t saying for Buck’s sake.

So he says it instead.  “I’m good here, Eddie. It’s only the matter of a few more months.” Even as he says it, he’s not sure he believes it. With the reckless way people are going about things, it could be a whole year before they manage enough herd immunity to be safe again.

“We miss you,” his friend says quietly, not looking his way. "And we wish you were here, with us."

Buck doesn’t know what to do with that, but he can feel tears burning at the back of his eyelids, can feel the lump in his throat grow, and knows that it’s only a matter of time before he sobs. 

In the end, he manages to say the same words without alerting his best friend that he’s about to lose his shit, strangling himself into some semblance of control as they finish up.

Hanging up, in Buck’s opinion, is the worst part of these daily calls. It’s almost a dependence, but to have voices other than his resonate through the apartment. Eddie never hangs up first, looking just as reluctant to hang on as Buck himself is, but Buck knows he’s got other things to be doing, so he takes it upon himself.

Doesn’t mean he has to like it.

Today, he presses the button, closes the top of the laptop and pushes his half-empty plate away, sighing as the tears finally begin to fall, the ache in his chest only growing.

The same cycle repeats itself on Christmas Day, too.

Chris takes it upon himself to call Buck at 5:30 in the morning so they can wake Eddie up together. Buck’s still blurry-eyed, and the brightness of the phone screen burns his eyes, but it’s worth seeing Eddie flail and nearly fall out of bed. Eddie’s face is still puffy from sleep, hair in a mess, and his pillow has left imprints on one side of his face but Buck still thinks he’s the best thing he’s ever seen.

They spend the first three hours of Christmas morning together, Buck getting up at some point to drive by Eddie’s house and wave at Christopher from a distance. He drops all his presents for the Diaz family at the end of the drive for Eddie to pick up, only barely resisting the urge to pull his friend into a hug.

By the way Eddie reaches for him before realization hits him, he’s struggling with the same impulse. Instead, there’s an awkward moment as Eddie passes him two boxes with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

Buck refuses to think too closely about it.

He drops his presents off for everyone else too, driving around aimlessly before he finally has to go home.

The evening plans are a little different this year. The 118 chose not to get together for Christmas dinner this year, instead doing it over a video call. Bobby still insists on making Christmas dinner, but instead of just one dish, he and Athena drop packaged food off at everyone’s places, ready to be warmed and eaten. 

Part of Buck doesn’t want to attend, just because he doesn’t want to see...how everyone has someone right now, and he doesn’t. But he also knows he’s made this bed, and now he needs to lie in it. 

So at seven-thirty on the dot, he gets dressed up and sits at his dining table, with Athena and Bobby’s food spread out in front of him and a glass of whisky disguised in a wine glass next to him. Bobby says grace again, and Buck ignores the twitching of his fingers under the table.

Last year, he’d been holding Chris and Harry’s hands. 

There are parts of this dinner that Buck finds himself almost suffering through, even though he’s pushing himself to be the happiest he can be because all his loved ones are safe. No one’s fallen ill, Maddie’s doing great in her pregnancy, and things are as blessed as they can be right now.

Still, he averts his gaze to the large windows when it gets too much, when the unfair part of his mind starts ruling his thoughts.

How cruel is it to end up right back where he was two years ago, even with all these people around him?

Very, is the answer.

Somehow, he gets through it, after topping off his glass a sum total of three times. He’s beginning to feel the buzz from the smooth burn the alcohol’s left down his throat, but it’s better than the anxious itch under his skin. 

Not a second later, his phone rings, again with Eddie’s ringtone.

He doesn’t know if he’s at the line of drunken stupor or not, but somehow, he already knows what this is about. So he laughs humorlessly to himself and picks up.

Eddie’s voice sounds smoother than the whisky he’s been downing all night. Briefly, Buck wonders if that’s just the alcohol talking.

“Are you okay?”

Eddie has asked that same question in a million different ways since March, each cutting another sliver of Buck’s heart out of his chest. 

Why does this man have to read him so well?

“Yeah, of course, why?” Regardless, he lies anyway, not really ready to expose the shame he feels in being so adverse to everything this year. He hates that he feels like this when he sees other people interacting with the people they live with.

Eddie snorts. Buck’s phone buzzes again, and he switches to video call against his better judgement. “Because, my dear friend, you looked like you wanted to be literally anywhere else.”

“Because I did.” There’s no point in hiding it, so he can’t even blame the alcohol for loosening his tongue. Instead, he brings his bottle, glass and phone upstairs, pouring himself another two fingers.

His friend nods understandingly before peering closely at him. “Are you drinking scotch? In a wine glass”

“Yep,” Buck says, swirling the liquid around the glass. “Keep it for special occasions, didn’t want the kids to see me drinking it.”

Eddie’s quiet for a moment. “How much have you had?”

He doesn’t actually know, but the bottle was new when he sat for dinner. Now, nearly a quarter of it is gone. But he doesn’t have a shift tomorrow so he doesn’t really care.

“How about...you finish what you’ve poured and then go to sleep? You’ll regret it in the morning if you keep going.” Buck’s liable to regret a lot of things in the morning, but he follows what Eddie says. The empty glass sits on the nightstand, reflecting the dim light from downstairs.

“Tell me a story.” Buck yawns, cushioning his phone against the adjacent pillow and laying down on his side.

Eddie’s voice blankets him as sleep looms, telling story after story of Christopher. And as much as Buck loves the kid, right now, he wants to hear about Eddie.

“Tell me a story about you. I want-want to learn something about you.”

It’s as great of a time as any. It’s not like any of them are going anywhere soon. If he was sober, he’d probably never make such a demand, wouldn’t let on how much these protocols are actually affecting him, mentally.

Eddie complies, picking and choosing tales from all over. Buck’s only halfheartedly paying attention to the words, realizing that if he closes his eyes, it’s almost like Eddie’s right here with him. 

So he doesn’t open his eyes, letting his best friend’s voice chase away some of the loneliness until only dregs are left. 

It’s an illusion, but it keeps him afloat while he sinks.

* * *

The next year is, in Buck’s opinion, the start of the best holiday seasons he’d have.

Because this year, he has Eddie and Chris.

Buck grins as Eddie’s arms snake around his waist, only to steal a strawberry and retreat.

“Rude,” Buck mutters, pointedly ignoring the way the red juice coats his fiancé’s lips. Eddie has the audacity to smirk, but Buck ignores that too, focusing on putting his trifle together.

“Everything’s been cleaned and ready,” Eddie says, leaning up against Buck’s side to press a sticky kiss to his cheek. The doorbell rings just before Buck can make the man kiss him for real.

“Hell no, they can wait,” he says, pulling Eddie back to him. His partner obliges him for a grand total of five seconds before slipping out under his hold with a laugh.

Buck watches him go with a smile.

The past five years have been an exercise in being alone, even with people surrounding him. This year, for the first time since he was a kid, the holiday season didn’t fill him with a sense of dread. He’d been looking forward to this because it would be their first as romantic partners, but then Eddie had to take it a step further.

His ring glints happily as he takes his niece from Maddie’s arms, leaning down to give his sister a hug.

They’ve done good for themselves. For all the turmoil that holidays have put them through, Buck can finally say that their spirits have been duly restored. Maddie’s back to enjoying Christmas, even if there are a few traditions she’s tentative about. Slowly, they’re working through those where they can, when she’s ready.

And Buck...doesn’t feel alone anymore. Not with a little piece of Eddie everywhere he goes, not with still seeing Chris light up every time he sees him, and not with finally settling in with his own place to belong.

The feeling of being alone hasn’t magically disappeared, but those moments are far and few in between.

As Buck looks around their full living room, to where his son is kicking the other kids’ butts at the video game they’re playing, to where his sister is sitting with her husband, to where Hen and Bobby are laughing over something, he definitely thinks this is the best Christmas he’s ever had.

“You okay?” Eddie’s fingers link with his own.

Buck casts another glance around their family. “Yeah. I am.”

He’s not alone. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you're also spending the holidays alone, thoughts and prayers for you! My DMs are always open if you want to talk about it :) 
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at [zeethebooknerd](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/zeethebooknerd) or on Twitter at [tkreyesevandiaz](https://twitter.com/tkreyesevandiaz).


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